


Recruit

by missema



Series: Kirkwall Tech [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Leaving Home, Recruitment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:50:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver hates Kirkwall, cannot stand living hand to mouth and watching his mother worry over their lack of prospects. Bethany can barely get work because she's a mage, and in a city flooded with refugees, there aren't even jobs for laborers. He isn't like Melissa, the genius, but he can at least take care of himself. Leaving is never easy, but here it feels like the right choice. </p><p>He's got to find his own way towards his dreams. This route may be circuitous but it's the best one open to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recruit

Carver sat on a bench, unsure where to look. After he’d undressed, he’d just been ordered to wait. He was in the barracks where he’d been directed after signing his contract, trying to not feel guilty about how happy he was. It was just, being there and not stuck in that hovel with his family, it felt good, right. He still loved them and would miss them, but he would be a part of something more now. A sense of rightness had settled over him from the moment he’d learned that he’d been accepted. This was what he was meant to do.

The only thing that didn’t feel right to him was leaving Bethany behind to live in that awful, tiny apartment. Melissa would keep Beth safe. He knew that his sisters and Mother would be all right, better even without him to worry about. Uncle Gamlen was there, even if he wasn’t much of a help. Melissa was the eldest, she would keep on doing for everyone, just as she had since their father died. It was just one less now. One less person, because he could do for himself, that’s what this was about, no longer being helpless. He would never just be another mouth for his sister to figure out how to feed.

He’d stripped out of his clothes and while he wasn’t shy about being naked, it was weird to just be sitting around in his underwear. There were a few other people in the room with him, no one he knew, else it would have been too awkward. Just three humans and an elf woman with long blonde hair and a scar on her face. One of the other humans was a woman and she sat on the bench with the elf, but not near each other.

“Hey, are you Hawke?” The voice behind him was Ferelden, but he didn’t recognize it. Carver turned, unsure. It startled him to be called Hawke, that was usually Melissa. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” Carver said. He didn’t recognize the redheaded woman coming towards him, but then again he’d only just gotten here. She was fully armored, dressed in a utility uniform. 

“Hoo, you are a big fucker, like they said. You’re the last one. This group is done. You all are stragglers, so listen up,” she said. It was apparent she expected more than silence from her expression, but no one moved or said anything. She shook her head, and Carver didn’t know what to make of her. “You’ll leave your clothes here. They’ll be mailed to your home address or put away for safekeeping. Right, so you’d best get down to the quartermaster and get what you need. There’s a line already. Don’t want to be last or you’ll be left with worse than nothing.” It wasn’t strictly true, but it was enough to get him moving.

Carver nodded and retraced his steps back towards the quartermaster he’d seen down the hall. The others fell in behind him, shuffling quietly along in their underwear. They were in temporary housing, no one lived in these rooms for long, but he knew they were leaving today. It was part of the reason why he’d forced himself to decide this morning. Let the change be swift, so that he couldn’t second-guess himself.

He had nothing with him, nothing worth taking anyway, not from Kirkwall. That didn’t bother him. It was just like his childhood, leaving without taking anything, with unsaid goodbyes. Maker, he hated Kirkwall. Ferelden would always be home to him, even if he’d spent his whole life there running and moving, it had always been to another town or village like the last, comforting in that it was almost the same. 

The quartermaster’s crew kitted him out with his own utility uniform and simple training armor, gave him a shiny pair of boots and thick socks to go with them. No weapons, not yet. A bag to keep all of his stuff in, toothbrush and other necessaries like that. Nothing more than basics, but he was used to making due with even less than the contents of his bag. Being a refugee brought hard lessons when even these basics seemed like luxuries. When he’d collected everything, they directed him to another line. 

Carver got in the line with the other recruits, even though there weren’t many, it seemed to take a long time for each one of them to get through. He saw what the hold up was. The bloke cutting hair was bloody ancient, and Carver eyed his hands as he watched him shave the hair off someone in line in front of him. At least the hands were steady. Mother had once tried to cut his hair when he was a boy. It had been fine up until the end, when a nervous tremor shook her hand. That’s when Father had started shaving both his and Carver’s heads, except in the winter when they grew out their hair to keep warm. He’d loved that. It was something that he and his father had shared.

There was money coming, and Carver knew exactly what he was going to do with it when he got it. Keep most of it in the bank, so he could have money, always. They’d made him open a bank account when he’d signed up. It was a lot of sovereigns, more than Carver had ever seen in his whole life at once. Of course it was a check, but he’d never ever gotten a check like that before. The most money he’d ever seen was when he’d joined the army in Ferelden, but Ferelden was dirt poor and getting worse when he’d signed his papers. That money had barely been enough to send home, for all it had been the most he’d ever earned on his own. 

This time there would be more. He’d taken all of the bonuses he could when he’d signed on, extra cash for sighing up without choosing a regional assignment, for the time he’d spent in the army, money to sign up for college because he said he’d thought about being an officer. Another thousand crowns for leaving right away. It felt ridiculous to have been eating mealy, stale bread so recently his jaw still ached from the memory, and now he was swimming in more money than he’d ever seen.

The money wasn’t everything, but it was a big part of it. His mother would be sad, he knew, but he’d send money back to help. Carver frowned, thinking of his mother standing in the middle of Gamlen’s filthy hovel, reading the letter he’d sent with the money. She’d worry her lower lip and pace back and forth, her long dreadlocks swinging as she did. He would miss her; he’d miss all of his family, except Gamlen. 

Carver felt his head ruefully after he had it shaved. It was just enough hair to make a thin black coating over his scalp, but not enough to seem like hair. This was good, he hoped. It would help him not to sweat into the helm that came with his armor. He could always grow it out later if the regional assignment they gave him was someplace like the ass end of Ferelden, always prone to snow at night, even in the summer.

The rest of his group was waiting outside in a group, and it was bigger than he expected. There were at least ten more people than he’d seen getting undressed in the barracks. They were all dressed identically now, in the new shiny boots and matching uniforms. He almost didn’t recognize the blonde elf until she came to stand next to him, unsmiling and rigid. Her hair wasn’t shaved off, but bound up and tucked under a cap.

“All right recruits, when you’re ready, get on the bus. It’s a long ride to our training camp. Welcome to our order of siblings in blood, if not by blood. We’ll spill enough together that you won’t know the difference. When we get there, you’re free to explore for the rest of the day. If you’re owed cash in hand for signing up, you can see the officer there who will distribute it before you’re dismissed. You can buy any necessaries there at the canteen.” The dwarf speaking was young, Carver noticed, no less authoritative for it. They looked like a surface dwarf rather than the few Carver had met that came from Orzammar. There was always something different about the beards.

“Right, if you have any questions, I’m here to answer them. You’re my class now. You’re a sorry lot, but we’ll get you into shape in no time. Off you go, and don’t get any ideas about going home. This is home. Get used to it.” They stopped talking and glared out at the motley lot of them. “Dismissed.”

Carver hadn’t felt so good since he’d left Ferelden. This was better than joining the army had been. For the first time, he felt like his life was his own, and going in a direction of his choosing. He took his armor and the few supplies they’d given him and got on the bus, grinning from ear to ear.


End file.
